Global Alpha Training Visit to Iganga in January 2010

Who Went?

Why did we go?

To help train seventy six church leaders from the region of Iganga on how to run an Alpha course. This was a challenge as they had not yet attended an Alpha course.

To visit some of the Love Africa projects from the Centre for Evangelism in Iganga that some of these leaders are working with.

What did we do?

We were hosted by Pastor Paul Lubale the leader of the Centre for Evangelism who organised the training conference with the Alpha Uganda team. He visited St James in November when he came to our three Alpha courses to understand better how Alpha works.

It was a joy to worship in his church and the congregation loved the songs John had learnt to sing in their language Lucanda.

The three day conference was attended by church leaders from the Centre for Evangelism and many different denominations in the region of Iganga. It covered practical subjects such as What is Alpha ? How to lead a small group, How to give the talks on Alpha but also five demonstration sessions from the Alpha course so that the delegates could experience Alpha. Each of the team helped to coach a small group of delegates over the conference on how to facilitate the small groups. It was encouraging to see them grow in confidence with this new skill. Towards the end of the conference the Alpha Uganda team helped the delegates begin to think through an action plan for how they were going to start running Alpha in their area. They are running a follow up training event in March to continue to develop this.

We pray that God will continue to water the seeds that were sown and trust that they will continue to bear fruit.

We spent two days visiting some of the projects supported by Love Africa in this area. It was encouraging to hear some of the ways that this help is making a difference. We heard from widows who had been trained to grow their own food and given seeds so that now they had enough food for their communities and could begin to sell some of their produce and start putting money in the bank.

It was moving to hear from young men in the child-headed household projects who had looked after their younger siblings from the age of twelve and were now in secondary education and hoping to become teachers. We thank God for the privilege of working in partnership with these brothers and sisters in Christ from the Centre for Evangelism to help bring the Good News of Jesus to these communities in Iganga.